


Home is Where You Are

by Jemppu



Series: Months [12]
Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Art, Culmets - Freeform, Fanart, M/M, Tumblr, honey mushroom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:14:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23819041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jemppu/pseuds/Jemppu
Summary: Part of"Honey Mushroom"series of illustrated Culmets momentslisted here on tumblr, and of"Months"moments, taking place before the couple's ultimate Discovery mission.Paul being in love.With an illustration
Relationships: Hugh Culber/Paul Stamets
Series: Months [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1082124
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Home is Where You Are

**Author's Note:**

> The series gets released quite out of order, as inspiration dictates, so I urge you to check out the [series list on tumblr](https://tinyurl.com/honeyshroom).

## 

## Months: Home Is Where You Are  
  


Paul turns in his sleeps and immediately wakes up to a cold, slightly damp spot on the bed sheets beneath him. He opens his eyes gradually to adjust them to the lights on in the room and takes a moment to try to remember where he is. He can see through the balcony door, that it’s dark outside.

He remembers it was light still, when he got here. How long has he been asleep?

There are stray clothing strewn around the room, and his travel case lies knocked over next to the door.

He turns to look at his side on the bed and sees Hugh there, sound asleep next to him.

Paul remembers now. His flight had gotten delayed. And he had been rather anxious the whole day to get here to meet his man after couple of long weeks apart again.

Paul smiles to himself. They must’ve both fallen asleep right after their happy reunion.

This is another one of Paul’s seminar trips. Luckily his scheduled lecture isn’t till tomorrow… or what time is it - is that today already? He scans the room quickly with his eyes to see if his PADD would be somewhere readily available, but fails to locate it anywhere in his field of vision.

He decides to get up, knowing he won’t be able to fall asleep for a while again, having fully woken up now.

He wiggles himself to the edge of the bed carefully, so as not to wake the doctor, and checks that he is wearing his socks before stepping out of the bed. He is very particular about keeping socks on in rotationally occupied facilities such as hotel rooms like this.

In fact the socks seem to be the only thing he is currently wearing, he takes note, as he goes to pull up the blanket precariously draped over his man, to better cover him. Then to quickly find his pants; this level of undress in general - let alone in a completely unfamiliar room - makes him feel uncomfortably exposed.

He locates his pants - with the underwear - strewn over an armrest of a chair, picks them up and goes to pull them on, while trying to look around for his jacket - the PADD should be in his chest pocket.

Where the hell **is** the damn jacket though? He picks up various other items as he comes across them, props up the knocked over travel case further away from the door and places his shoes next to it neatly. Still no jacket.

He picks up Hugh’s seemingly unused pajamas from the floor next to the foot of the bed, folds them and lays them on the bed. Then suddenly remembers to go check the bathroom for the jacket.

There it is! Thrown on the counter next to the sink in an undiscerningly untidy manner. Paul smiles at himself, recalling what went on here. The wet towel he picked up from the floor and the dampness on the bed sheets both make sense now.

He checks the jacket pockets for the PADD, and indeed, there it is where it should - in the inner breast pocket.

Paul steps back to the room, while checking the PADD. There is one new message: the weekend’s seminar timetable. And the current local time shows 0036. That would be 9.36 PM in Deneva, if he’s not mistaken. He won’t sleep for a good while still.

He is actually starting to feel a little peckish. His last meal was way back before he boarded his flight, over eight hours and a ‘workout session’ ago now. The lounge bar at the downstairs lobby must still be open - he could go for a snack.

He grabs his shirt from the stack of clothes recovered from the floor and goes to check himself from the mirror on the wall - the hair can always use few fixing touches. Now especially: Hugh seems to have been vigorously at it again. The man sure takes full advantage of the times he’s 'allowed’ to it - Paul smiles at his reflection.

He pats his pockets to check he has everything he needs with him - the comb, the PADD, the room key card along with others…

He glances over at Hugh in the bed, who seems to have managed to throw the sheets almost completely off of himself again - the man just doesn’t seem able to keep himself covered, conscious or not, Paul chuckles to himself, recalling Hugh’s usual habit of lounging in states of undress, when relaxing. And who can blame him, with such well maintained body like that.

Paul should probably leave some note of his absence for his sleeping beauty.

He gingerly steps by Hugh’s side of the bed to grab the doctor’s PADD off the nightstand and takes it with him as he goes to open the balcony door.

Paul steps out on the balcony and carefully shuts the door behind him.

The impact of the fresh night air is overwhelming and Paul lets it take over all his senses for a moment. There are faint noises of nature echoing somewhere from a shrubbery in the near distance.

He takes a look around, trying to get a better picture of the kind of facility they’re currently staying at, but it’s hard to make out much because of the darkness. He sees the pool lights down below though, and can clearly smell the ocean somewhere nearby, which visibly is only a faint glow of the horizon in the distant darkness. The air is warm, salty and slightly humid.

He leans on the balcony railing, opens a tab in his PADD and starts typing a message. The brightness of the PADD is piercing in the dark, so he makes sure to adjust that too in between his typing.

Ready, send.

He’s expecting it to take a while for the message to travel: he is using his work device, so the data must course across the stars, then through a maze of Deneva Station servers and back.

Paul takes the moment to glance up and sees the stars brightly lit up in the clear night sky. But only from a certain angle; if he moves one bit, the lights from the pool area below, or the lights through their room window blind the view.

He can name only few of the objects in the sky as they would be presented in educational texts. Who cares of such man-made designations anyway - way too limited a method to ever start to describe, or try to comprehend the cosmos in full with.

A distractingly cheerful chime sounds out in Paul’s hand then, breaking his moment of reflection. Fuck, that’s loud, just as he suspected the communication device meant to alert an occasionally on-call medic would be.

Paul puts the PADDs aside and turns around. He smiles and sighs content for the sight. Seeing his man through the window, blissfully asleep right there, suddenly makes the rented room seem significantly more inviting and familiar.

As Paul steps back into the warmly lit room, it feels a lot more homely now somehow. Their current little safe haven in the vast dark cosmos.

Coming in senses hightened from the fresh air, he can now also smell a certain faint, but distinct 'after activity odour’ still lingering in the room, and decides to leave the balcony door ajar.

He places Hugh’s PADD back where he took it and carefully goes to the front door. At least Dear Doctor now has some inkling of Paul’s whereabouts, should he wake up to an empty bed, Paul thinks, as he slips into his shoes and grabs a sweater from the 'recovery pile’.

He reaches for the light switch by the door to dim the lights a bit, then opens the door and steps out.

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts on the work posted along with the illustration on [**tumblr**](https://jmalkki.tumblr.com/post/175301446839/home-is-where-you-are-this-is-a-sort-of-a).
> 
> _Likes, shares, comments and what have you, all appreciated on:_  
>  _[ **tumblr**](http://jmalkki.tumblr.com/) | [**twitter**](https://twitter.com/Jemppu) | [**instagram**](https://www.instagram.com/jeminamalkki/) | [**DeviantArt**](https://www.deviantart.com/jemppu)_


End file.
